.::. Homecooked Q2'14 Edition.::.

We actually cook at home very often, usually at least 2-3 times a week. I enjoy cooking, and the husband can cook pretty decent food too.  The husband usually cooks western food like pasta and brunch, while I do the chinese food like soups. We love soups, and I think my tastiest soup is herbal chicken soup and ABC soup - these 2 are really yummy and nutritious. For some reason my other soups like lotus root and winter melon soup simply does not taste as good. I usually buy my own herbs for the chicken soup, and I really wouldn't mind drinking it everyday. We do not deep fry at home and I  usually try to balance our meals with vegetables and meat.

Food is very special to me, and I think that putting in effort to cook for your loved ones is one of the best expression of love. And so yes, I really appreciate it when the husband cooks for me and I try to cook as much as possible too. I know that he loves it when he comes home to a home-cooked dinner after a long day at work, without having to think about what to eat or to packet home.



It always warms my heart when the husband does the cooking.



He always cooks pasta, but he changes things up - Crayfish!



My favorite breakfast is bacon and cheese sandwich. It's really good, but I didn't like the chips - he usually does it with scrambled eggs.



Sometimes, it's the details that matter. His honey-lemon drink is complete with a slice of lemon on the top that made me laugh.

His cream pasta with erm poached egg and pan-fry chicken.

This was dinner one of the Friday evenings, I marinated the chicken wings and did the salad while he made the pizza. He added so much ingredients and cheese that it's a gooey mess. Wasn't the best pizza but we had a good laugh. Look at that face on the pizza!

I tried to make beef stew, it was quite good for the first time!

Here's steak salad for lunch.

We have a thing for pork trotters bee hook with luncheon meat. And I tried making prawn-paste chicken with the oven without deep frying. It was not bad, though probably not dry enough and we didn't coat it with some oil initially.

Because the husband (and I) loves steak, we do our own steaks at home often. Sometimes, there are good deals for steak in Cold Storage or NTUC Finest. It's actually a very quick and easy dinner to make.

We had steak at home at least twice the past 2 month

My fresh potato oven-baked wedges are getting pretty good, and I can do a medium steak now.

And because the husband had his wisdom tooth extracted, I have been cooking porridge for the past week. Porridge everyday. I try to cook different soups and use the soup to cook porridge for more nutrients. The most delicious one was this black and white herbal chicken soup with eggs and chopped fish balls (his favorite). It was surprisingly very tasty and delicious.

Oh, and did I mention that I love my pressure cookers? It makes my soup really delicious with just 30 minutes of boiling. It makes sumptuous soups after work possible.

I tried to braise a duck last weekend since the FIL is coming for dinner and he loves ducks. The duck was huge and fat. It did braise pretty well in my underutilized dutch oven though, took about an hour to simmer.

And here's a simple teochew muay style dinner, with steamed egg using chicken soup for the husband. Very yummy and it'd be perfect with some steamed otah and pan-fry luncheon meat. Alas, a whole duck was already way too much to finish - that's why I like cooking for bigger groups, so there's more variety!

Next up I'd like to try salted vegetables duck soup, lamb chops and perhaps a good fish soup.

.::. Our home feature on Renotalk .::.

Our home is featured on one of the articles on Renotalk.

http://www.renotalk.com/articles/431/Scandinavian-Scent

It isn't much, simply a compilation of the pictures that I have already shared online like 2 years ago, and they got me to answer a few questions which they did not publish in full. I suppose that part about asking people to reconsider H.E.R.F flooring and highlighting its potential issues wouldn't do their advertisement fees good. Neither will my humble contractor with his little firm look good on their site.

I still recommend my contractor without reservations, mainly because I feel that he's an honest and responsible business man who gets things done. He visits his projects daily around the island and has a dedicated group of mostly Malaysian workers unlike many who have switched to bangalas and ah tiongs. He's definitely not the cheapest, but have been very responsive and prompt throughout the whole renovation and accommodated all our delays with our carpentry. Most importantly, if there are issues, you can talk to him and get things solved.  I suppose it's the trust and rapport we had when working with him. I've wrote about my experience with him extensively - just click on 'renovation' on the right.

We still keep in contact with him and are on good terms. People who know him would know that he's quite funny, prompt and down-to-earth. He has atrocious english, and even his mandarin isn't that good when it comes to writing. Sometimes, when I tell him that some people complain that he's not responsive and did not reply emails, he would ask me to help tell those people to call him instead of sending him emails (in English). He has very very bad English, so don't expect replies when he can barely understand the contents. I think it's a problem to work with him if you can't speak mandarin or malay.

Here's his contact and Facebook page where you can see his other projects. His other project was featured in My Paper but did not mention him too - papers seem to like publicizing big ID names but make no mention of contractors who does the job.

Kevin
9022 - 2321

https://www.facebook.com/pages/H2O-Interior-Renovation/536321743070166

.::. Walks with Chikey .::.

I wished we went on more walks with Chikey, apart from around the neighborhood. I always imagine that we would spend our weekends bringing Chikey on walks if we had a car. But then again, it's a tad ridiculous to get a car just to bring the dog for walks, but sometimes, it's a lifestyle! Hah, but being the practical people we are, that's obviously just a thought.

We brought Chikey out some time back, when he had his mum's car. Chikey went to Hort Park!

It was actually quite a short walk, because we were running late for dinner.  But I think Chikey had fun!